I don't feel too confident about showcasing my artwork to you, newgrounds folk, but would be nice to have some output out here so I'm including one my latest works in this thread. My uncertainity comes from a fact that like 90% of artwork here is sketch-tier anime, you won't be expecting any fancy pokemon fanfic or furries from me, and I'm pretty young too, 17, so I am pretty much a square trying to fit into triangle-shaped box :/
Oh, and feel free to critique my drawings ;)

P.S. Since I am beginner on this subject, I wanna ask something: do I have to include all my submitted art ITT or you guys scout me out by ourselves or what?

At 4/18/11 11:23 AM, MasterMerol wrote:
Those are all really good! I specially like the first one.

Thank you kind sir.
btw I used to go to art school for 2 years so I have bit of an advantage but not too much cus they weren't like giving out magic pills there. That also explains why I am appealed to old-fashioned pencil drawing, those graffiti and vector stuff were merely a test drive for me

At 4/18/11 11:05 AM, Flashmovieboy wrote:
Posting more of my submitted stuff you can also find on my account.
This is one of my first and also latest vectoring work done on photoshop, though photoshop is a bitch when it comes to vectoring

At 4/18/11 02:14 PM, Flashmovieboy wrote:
No access granted to that URL unfortunately, but I can tell that I used an original picture as a reference material and drew a bunch of lines, gradients and occasinal brushes on it.

I dunno, something smells fishy.... and it's not the tuna I had for lunch.

At 4/18/11 02:50 PM, big-jonny-13 wrote:
I dunno, something smells fishy.... and it's not the tuna I had for lunch.

At 4/18/11 03:33 PM, Kakashi1930 wrote:
*coughs* Ahem.
Please, if you do any referenced work, post links (that work) to your references. A bad reputation will form when we find very... similar works to those that are posted here.

Trying to keep it in mind... so I need to have reference photo included even though I didn't photomanipulate but just traced the lines around? :/

I agree with Vero, tracing is pointless if you don't know how the gun works. Once you get an understanding of each component of the gun, it's much easier to recreate it without a reference, at worse with minimal side-by-side comparison.
Knowing the gun's inner workings may even lead you to design your own unique weapon, so you really have nothing to lose.
It's a bit more work that simply tracing, but the rewards are exponentially better and far more satisfying.

At 4/18/11 05:26 PM, Flashmovieboy wrote:
Trying to keep it in mind... so I need to have reference photo included even though I didn't photomanipulate but just traced the lines around? :/

Tracing is as bad as photomanipulating... regardless, if you use any image or source to help you with your work, i.e. you looked at a pose at Posemaniacs or drew a picture based off of a picture... these all need to be noted in your post along with your WIP/image. This way we can confirm that you aren't, in fact, stealing/tracing/whatevering the artwork. They don't even always look like your finished product, as long as they helped you. And don't get me wrong, almost all of us artists here on the forums use references. It is the best way to make sure our proportions and other stuff is accurate. Don't be ashamed to use them!
That being said, we don't really find tracing artwork requires a large amount of skill... and I would advise you to, in the future, not to trace/copy anyone's work without their permission and saying so in the thread. Furthermore, I would not post that stuff in your Art Gallery as, again, it doesn't take as much effort and/or skill than making it yourself.
You seem to be a kind lad, and you aren't getting all worked up about this. You also didn't deny that you traced it. This is just a note for you to remember in the future. We wouldn't want any misunderstandings ;)

just including a steyr AUG drawing that was very lightly referenced (based on a small picture from a huge-ass gun encyclopedia) but I made it like in the 9th grade so that's 2-3 years from now. Maybe it shows that I can picture a gun without "stealing". I hope you guys do understand that until I have not yet entered college with serious fine art down to business, I don't have to have people or guns posing at me any time I have a need to draw (not to say I haven't drew still life back when I was artschooler but I can't afford such possibilities at home)
But really, I kinda hate technical drawing, I always get frustated when I have to mess around with small details. Drawing something where I can shade instead of detail (people, compositions etc.) is way more appealing.

Since I started typing, may I ask a question. How can I train myself to be more accurate at picturing proportions? Like when I have photo on computer screen and paper beneath my hand, what is the good way to get correct sizes of things on that paper (not too small, big, narrow, or wide face, not too big or small eyes etc.)

At 4/19/11 09:05 AM, Flashmovieboy wrote:
Since I started typing, may I ask a question. How can I train myself to be more accurate at picturing proportions? Like when I have photo on computer screen and paper beneath my hand, what is the good way to get correct sizes of things on that paper (not too small, big, narrow, or wide face, not too big or small eyes etc.)

Well, you could always try out gridding.
Take your image on the computer, and open it in like Paint or something, and throw a grid pattern over it. Then make a grid on your paper, and work square by square.

At 4/19/11 12:37 PM, big-jonny-13 wrote:
Well, you could always try out gridding.
Take your image on the computer, and open it in like Paint or something, and throw a grid pattern over it. Then make a grid on your paper, and work square by square.

At 4/19/11 12:44 PM, threadwood wrote:
try drawing from real life, and use a pencil and your thumb to get the proportions right.

very great tips, actually I was taught about the last one at art school but this pencil & thumb thing seems to turn out embarrassingly inaccurate when it comes to 2D references like photos from computer screen so can't use it in my normal way of drawing, the grid line suits better with 2D references.

as I said, new works are in due to weekends so mods plz do not lock the thread or something

meanwhile, I post one of my drawings made this year but the face looks kinda awful to me (not used to portraying such a small proportions accurately) so I am not pleased enough to submit it.

I don't see the michael jackson in it but I do have to say this is a major improvement over the girl that you have at the very beginning (no offense but you have her face skewed so weirdly it kinda makes her face look like it's melting off, However there is something I really need to recommend for this piece and thats to include much more contrast in the shading along with cleaning up the lines (also find a better way to take the picture of this piece because it's really blurry and lowers the quality of the photo immensely...)

At 4/19/11 02:53 PM, Flashmovieboy wrote:
meanwhile, I post one of my drawings made this year but the face looks kinda awful to me (not used to portraying such a small proportions accurately) so I am not pleased enough to submit it.

That's pretty nice, looks like Helena Bonham Carter.

Who are you looking for? What are you looking at?
A light? a star. A boat? an insect. A plane? a flying fish

At 4/19/11 05:13 PM, silversunned wrote:
I don't see the michael jackson in it but I do have to say this is a major improvement over the girl that you have at the very beginning (no offense but you have her face skewed so weirdly it kinda makes her face look like it's melting off, However there is something I really need to recommend for this piece and thats to include much more contrast in the shading along with cleaning up the lines (also find a better way to take the picture of this piece because it's really blurry and lowers the quality of the photo immensely...)

So you are implying that my earlier work is better than the latter one at beginning of this thread? Hmm..
btw really nice to hear some constructive criticism.
Actually I even know a solution how to solve this contrast problem - I must pick such reference pictures that have nice and strong shadows & highlights, so it may carry on to my drawings just fine.

I am more troubled about your last piece of advice. I have very freaking limited means of uploading my images. I gotta admit that all my drawings look hell of a lot better IRL, in fact, and I can't really seem to capture that essence when uploading to the net. I don't have a scanner and the photocamera I borrowed is somewhere between low-mid tier and taking a picture of a picture means struggling around with the room lightning, position of paper to reduce glare etc. then in photoshop I can fortunetly colour balance in a way to get some of the contrast in place but unless my hand gets a solid grip over the camera I can't get such picture where details look legit and blurriness is invisible... :/

sorry about lack of picture, I browsed my art folder but too embarrassed to post any other earlier works, they're faces look even more awful than the previous picture I posted. (btw all of my works ever done are up on deviantart but it goes against the rules to give such gallery links I think)